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RALEIGH, N.C.—It’s Hockey Defence 101: When attempting to defend a 2-on-1 break, the elementary option is to take away the pass and let the goaltender handle the shot.

It’s more complicated than that, of course. At the game’s highest level, plays change by the millisecond, and the best players react accordingly. Which is why it was so frustrating for fans of the Maple Leafs to watch Jake Gardiner play a particular 2-on-1 rush in Thursday night’s game against the Hurricanes.

This was during a Maple Leafs’ first-period power play, with the visitors already down 1-0 to one of the NHL’s bottom feeders. After Toronto defenceman Morgan Rielly got caught on a bad pinch in the Carolina zone, the play streamed toward the Toronto end with Rielly standing flat-footed at the Carolina half boards.

Gardiner found himself as the lone man back. Dwyer had company to his right as teammate Justin Faulk was bearing down on the Toronto net. So at the very least, it seemed obvious what Gardiner’s minimum responsibility should be: He had to take away Dwyer’s passing lane to Faulk.

But Gardiner didn’t take away the passing lane. He didn’t take a more aggressive approach, preferred by Toronto’s coaching staff, and apply pressure to the puck carrier, either. His reaction on the multiple choice quiz was none of the above. He simply skated backwards and watched the play develop — watched Dwyer feed Faulk for a one-timer on an open net. Jonathan Bernier, the helpless goaltender, had to be shaking his head at the defensive ineptitude in front of him.

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“In an ideal world we’d like to see some pressure put on the puck,” said Leafs coach Randy Carlyle, recounting the play after the game. “We got caught out of position. It was a real tough play for your goaltender to stop.”

It was plays like that one that ended Toronto’s six-game winning streak here on Thursday night, with the visitors too often acting like passive observers in a 4-1 loss to a team that entered the evening as the 30th-place team in a 30-team league.

In a league known for its parity, this was a rare matchup of extremes. The road-trippers from the north came into the game as the highest-scoring team in the NHL; the Hurricanes as the third-lowest. And while Toronto came in on a six-game streak, the home team had lost its previous half dozen.

“It’s kind of frustrating to see that you lose against a team like that,” said Bernier.

Still, maybe the Maple Leafs were due for a mulligan. Coming off the highs of beating the likes of the Kings and the Ducks, they came into a half-empty building against a listing opponent in one of the sport’s non-hotbeds and couldn’t find the necessary motivation for an on-point outing.

“We got outworked,” Carlyle said. “I don’t think we were mentally ready to go out and play the type of game that was required. Simple as that.”

The game was a reminder of the underlying reality of Toronto’s recent prosperity. Though the Leafs had been on the receiving end of plenty of plaudits for the way they’d responded to a 9-2 drubbing to the Nashville Predators a little more than a month ago — Toronto is now 10-2-1 since they’d also been falling into some old habits. Despite the wins, they’d been outshot in their previous 12 games by an average of more than five shots a game. The possession metrics suggested they’d been too often “receiving the play,” as Carlyle likes to say. On Thursday, when they were outshot 36-26, they were sometimes simply guilty of botching it.

It was Defence 101: When attempting to protect the front of your net, it’s important to be aware of your surroundings. “Head on a swivel,” is the age-old maxim. Applied to a particular play in Thursday’s first period, it would have behooved Gardiner to keep an eye on the guy standing on top of the goal crease. But Gardiner did no such thing as Carolina’s Chris Terry camped out on Toronto’s doorstep. As Carolina captain Eric Staal rounded the net, he neatly banked a pass off Bernier’s pads that found Terry’s stick. Gardiner wasn’t in position to pressure Staal. He wasn’t in position to tie up Terry. He was caught in between, watching, as Terry buried the goal that made it 1-0. At that point the Hurricanes had outshot the Leafs 14-4.

As veteran defenceman Stephane Robidas said after it was over: “We didn’t start the game on time.”

For a while, it looked like they might finish it in a flourish. The Maple Leafs made it 2-1 on a Dion Phaneuf slapper that gave them brief life in the third period. But after a Toronto power play midway through the final frame was negated by a Cody Franson interference penalty — and after Andrej Sekera scored on the ensuing home power play with a wrister that beat Bernier high glove — the Hurricanes restored their two-goal cushion. It was the first time in nine games Carolina managed at least three goals in a game. An empty netter by Elias Lindholm made it four.

As NHL wakeup calls go, it was a gentle nudge from a nap.

“It’s not a 9-2 loss to Nashville, that’s for sure,” said Leafs centreman Peter Holland.

If every winning streak eventually ends, to some minds a bigger test will come Saturday at home against Philadelphia, another struggling opponent that should be beatable.

Said Bernier: “Good teams, they don’t lose two in a row. That’s got to be our mentality.”

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